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Interested in attracting more leads, more
traffic and more sales?
Ever wondered how some people seem to attract so much business through
referrals and word of mouth?
If you thought that networking, meeting clients regularly
and attending seminars etc was the secret behind it, you
would be partly correct. However there is a psychological
tactic that can be harnessed and brought to work in your
favor to attract more leads, more traffic and more
sales.
Behavioral psychologists have known about a tactic known
as the Propinquity effect for quite some time. The
propinquity effect is a concept proposed by psychologists
Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back based on
a study in 1950. It refers to the apparent fact that the more
frequently we interact with specific individuals, the more
likely we are to form friendships and potential romantic
relationships with them.
An ebook by SPROUTWORTH
Two studies were conducted
that highlight the Propinquity
Effect
Study 1
The initial study was done in 1950 in the Westgate student
apartments on the campus of MIT in Cambridge, MA. What
the researchers discovered was that students tended to
make friends with their immediate neighbors. They also
discovered that the students who lived near the ground
floor staircases and mailboxes tended to have friends on
both floors due to their proximity or “propinquity” to the
entrance of the building.
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Study 2
In the 1970’s Thomas J Allen a MIT professor conducted a
study to determine how the distance between engineers
offices affects the frequency of technical communication
between them. The results of that study were remarkably
similar to that the 1950’s study and was called the Allen
Curve.
So how does this work out in the online world?
Professor Allen discovered that there was a strong
correlation between distance and the frequency of
communication between workstations. The farther away
people were physically from each other, the less likely they
were to communicate with each other in any form be it
telephone or face to face, email etc. In mathematical terms
he discovered a huge drop off in communication based on
distance. In other words we are likely to like and befriend
people with whom we have close physical contact and are
likely to lose touch with people who we don’t see as
frequently.
(Visibility + Engagement) on an ongoing basis
= Increased Propinquity
Essentially you need to be visible to and engage your
audience on an ongoing basis.
Here are 29 steps to help get you started or to fine tune
your existing processes.
Steps 1 through to 4 are essential to the process. The other
steps can be mixed and matched to suit your purposes.
Let's get into it!
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1 – Social listening
Social listening
Social media makes it much easier for businesses to
connect with their customers and gain information and
insights from them. Social media listening helps provide
feedback on launches, products and services, content
being generated, allows you to manage reputation,
humanize your brand and create better customer
relationships, perform competition analysis.
In addition to social listening, be sure to incorporate what
you hear from people at trade shows, networking events,
seminars etc. Actual surveys are also a great way to get
information as well.
Most of all it helps to establish your key propinquity
points where you can meet and interact with your
potential customers more often.
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2 – Create branded online
destinations
Create branded
online destinations
Once your propinquity points have been determined,
create branded online destinations that help raise
awareness and loyalty. In fact companies like Coca Cola
and Salesforce with successful social media branding
surround customers with online experiences that allow
them to select how they interact with the brand.
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3 – Establish key entry points
Establish key entry points
Think about this - if you have a blog with 10 pages of
content, then there are 10 ways for the search engines to
find your site. However once traffic comes to your site the
goal should be to get people engaged, talking about it and
sharing it with their own audiences.
Most people advise creating meaningful content for your
viewers but to increase the chances of it being shared
perhaps we should take a point from Jonah Berger’s
research into why content goes viral. According to his
research content that gets shared the most are ones that
triggered the most arousing emotions, such as awe and
anger. People don’t really want to share facts – they share
feelings. Decades of social psychology has shown that
people often share strong emotions as a means of
fostering connection and solidarity.
process through which emotions spread like a disease and
are therefore considered contagious. It can be quite
effective in that this is a social influence process that
conveys to people that the socially appropriate response is
to engage in the same actions as that ofother people either
physically or virtually.
In similar research internet memes like “Charlie Bit My
Finger” have gone viral due to a psychological process
called emotional contagion. Emotional contagion is a
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4 – Locate and bring the
audience back to you
Locate and bring
the audience
back to you
Where do most of your customers spend their time? Once
you have identified these places you too need to spend
time there and engage in the conversations happening
there. A simple way to get started is by doing a Google
search for your keywords that consumers would likely be
using to search for businesses like yours.
Once the audience understands that you’re there to offer
genuine help, information and not promote your business
or self , then you can also share your branded online
destinations.
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5 – Connect with influencers
Connect with
influencers
While locating where your potential customers spend most
of their time, also be on the lookout for online influencers
in those communities. Get to know them and get on their
radar by commenting of their blogs, retweeting their
content etc. As you add value to the online conversation
they are more likely to expose you to their audience.
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6 – Give more than you receive
Give more than
you receive
Spend more time developing relationships and being
useful. A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 principle. Spend
80% of your time on non-promotional activities and or
conversations and 20% of your time in self-promotional
activities and conversations.
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7 – Communicate through
thought leadership
Communicate
through thought
leadership
Engaging in thought leadership is really about providing
value to readers. This could be done by teaching,
entertaining, igniting discussions and gaining honest
feedback. Examples of this are American express and their
Open forum blog and IBM’s Global CEO Study.
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8 – Humanize your content
Humanize your
content
This applies to the content and or the use of the social
network. It is the act of being human as a brand. This
allows of transparency. If you make a mistake own up to
the mistake.Here are a few tips to help keep humanity as a
core focus:
e.
Do not engage in the hard sell. Your audience does
want to hear about new products or services but not 90%
of the time. So devote 90% of the time to investing in things
that are useful to them and giving your business a
personality.
a.
Social media is a 2 way street. Ask questions, listen and apply their feedback if appropriate.
b.
Don’t be boring. You only have a few seconds to help
potential fans/customers decide if they want to engage
with your content or not.
c.
People want to feel like they’re part of something.
Ask your customers and fans what they want to see more
of from your blog, handle, list etc.
d.
Identify your business fans. Harness your business
fans evangelistic enthusiasm. Irrespective of whether the
fans are internal or external, give them a chance to share
their perspective, put a spotlight them on your site, be part
of special focus groups etc.
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Quick and
responsive
customer
communication
9 – Quick and responsive
customer communication
A good opportunity to provide customer service to a large
audience is via social media if consumers know about it
and are encouraged to do so. While customer complaints
may be a concern, don’t fret over them and just address
them head on. Caring for customers can turn these
opportunities can turn into great testimonials.
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10 – Accountability
Accountability
A report from eMarketer says 77% of buyers said they are
more likely to buy from a company if the CEO uses social
media, and 82% trust the company more. Businesses that
engage in social media and encourage their audience to
interact with them, ensures a certain level of accountability
and increases trust as well.
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11 – Fun and simple engagement
Fun and simple
engagement
Provide value in fun and creative ways not just your
company and its services or value. Think about daily
content, apps, videos, contests, give-aways, sweepstakes
and infographics as few ways to get you started. The
opportunities are numerous.
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12 – Social responsibility
Social
responsibility
A great way to build trust is to let customers and potential
customers know that you care about others more than just
yourself. Look for creative ways in which you can donate
expertise, time and or even money to your community and
the world around you.
Marriott for example uses mobile check-ins to leverage the
power of social interactions to do good by donating $2 for
each check-in toward a holiday food drive.
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13 – Optimize your presence on
social media
Optimize your
presence on
social media
Social media can be used for more than sharing photos,
videos and funny status updates. In fact it can be used to
improve your online reputation and increase exposure to
your brand and website. A key focus needs to be on the
content you put on each platform, however this needs to
go along with optimizing profiles and with relevant tags,
keywords and images.
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14 – Promote your social media
sites
Promote your
social media sites
Increase your propinquity points and allow your followers
to interact with you across different platforms. Promote
your social media sites to your email list and vice-versa
from time to time. Also keep it real on social media sites
as your followers grow so they don’t feel invisible in the
crowd.
Dale Carnegie in “How to Win Friends and Influence
People” writes - “Names are the sweetest and most
important sound in any language.”
So go the extra step and use your fans’ names when you
respond to their questions or comments on social
networks.
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15 – Make it easy to share
content
Make it easy to
share content
If you have a following then chances are that they will be
quite willing to share your content with others. Make it easy
by adding social share buttons. Ask your brand evangelists
to share their perspectives and stories. Use Tribber to find
like-minded people who in turn are likely to drive the kind
of quality traffic you are looking for.
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16 – Offer incentives for new
likes and shares
Offer incentives
for new likes and
shares
Use propinquity and the rule of reciprocity to offer
incentives for like, shares or subscriptions. One of the most
under used locations for this to be applied is the
traditional thank you page of email providers. You can
transform it into a connection by following the principles
outlined in this article.
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17 – Telling a story
Telling a story
Stories have the potential to hold a powerful sway over
our memories, behaviors and even identities, according to
psychological research. Stories around your brand are your
competitive advantage. It is also important to encourage
and allow your consumers and evangelists to tell the story
for you. So ask them.
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18 – Saying thank you
Saying thank you
Be sure to say thank you whether it be a retweet or a link
to your content etc. Do not let it overwhelm you but do try
to make the most of reaching out to people and building
up your potential evangelists.
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19 – Do not auto DM on twitter
Do not auto DM
on twitter
I don’t think I really need to explain that sending mass
direct messages on Twitter is a no-no in that they have little
or no value to those receiving them.
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20 – No hard selling
No hard selling
Don’t use newsletters and your social media content as an
avenue to push your latest products and services. Instead
invest in building relationships and take the long sell view.
Focus more on gaining the trust and appreciation of people
in your area of influence. This is very much a relationship
driven economy so invest in relationships.
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21 – Size doesn’t matter
Size doesn’t
matter
The number of followers or size of your email list doesn’t
matter as much as gaining followers who are engaged.
Provide opportunities for followers to follow on multiple
platforms.
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22 – Criticism is important
Criticism is
important
Criticism is almost assuredly going to come your way. It
is part and parcel of open communication. Take it in your
stride and respond. By this I do not mean getting into a
verbal tirade or ugly standoff, but rather clarify or
reiterate your position and do not engage haters.
Stand up for what you believe and you will gain trust
with your audience that is listening and watching.
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23 – Design of website and social
pages is king
Design of website
and social pages
is king
Answer this – have you ever visited a poorly designed
website or webpage and not gone on to look further into
the company? By not making your website and social media
pages user friendly and maintaining them you will
instantly lose credibility with your traffic visiting your
site.
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24 – Send hand written notes
Send hand
written notes
Being unique and standing out is not all that hard
especially when it comes to thanking people. Social media
is often used to thank people but sending a hand written
note is very rare.
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25 – Deliver quality
Deliver quality
Leverage the rule of reciprocity by delivering quality
content. The rule of reciprocity is a psychological or social
norm that can have a powerful influence on our behavior.
The rule operates on the principle that we tend to feel
obligated to return favors after people do favors for us.
So share your best content and people will begin to look to
you for information, help and will understand your
business better.
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26 – Leverage surveys to clients
and readers
Leverage surveys
to clients and
readers
Understanding your audience is crucial to being relevant to
them and understanding them, so use data from surveys
to contribute to increasing the engagement on
propinquity points.
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27 – Get involved in your
community and share on social
Get involved in
your community
and share on
social
One of the simplest ways to increase your propinquity
points within your community is to help develop
conversation and participate. Share your involvement on
social media as well.
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28 – B2B interaction
B2B interaction
Social media is a not just a way to connect with clients but
also to connect with other businesses and organizations.
You can interact with charities your organization supports,
partner with other businesses for networking events or
fundraisers which shows that you’re interested in more
than their business.
People are more inclined to trust brands that enact social
change and take responsibility for their actions.
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29 – Content
Content
c.
Watch for frequency and engagement from
community and develop your own frequency schema
a.
Discover and use Keywords
When creating or promoting content especially social
media content, you need to include specific and relevant
keywords given that the major search engines are
incorporating social feeds into real time search results.
A few sources for keywords are Google Webmaster Tools,
Twitter Lists, socialmention.com, Buzzbundle
One of the crucial elements of content creation and
publishing is understanding what content you need for
different platforms and how often you need to publish on
each platform. Developing an integrated frequency
schedule helps to better understand how your content
interrelates.
b.
Get ideas and inspiration from looking up the top keywords on search engines and social media platforms
What shows up in the search results when you do search
for your preferred keywords on search engines or social
media platforms? You can get a bunch of content creation
ideas that this alone provides.
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29 – Content
d.
Test and Track
When you develop a piece of content and post it to a
platform such as Twitter you need to determine how
popular that piece of content is with your audience.
You also need to test against factors that could influence
against popularity such as time, phrasing, day, link
placement etc. Test and track each element.
e.
Tweak and Repurpose
Once you have a winning combination for the content, use
it on the next platform so that you build on the
effectiveness and efficiencies you are building. As you do
so the relevancy and popularity of your content should
increase with your readers and subscribers. There may be
some overlap of subscribers or readers but by and large
you should have different groups of people on each
platform.
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So there you have 29 steps to help kick start your efforts to leverage the
propinquity effect.Now, which steps are you going to implement and which
ones are you currently implementing? Let me know your thoughts and how
you are tracking.
Your journey in leveraging the law of
propinquity to get more traffic, attract more
leads and more sales should be engaging and
customer centred.
If you love connecting with people and building a thriving and profitable audience,
you’ll love Sproutworth.
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